New Book by New Jersey Poet Michael T. Young Now Available to Pre-Order

Jersey City, NJ, October 27, 2011 --(PR.com)-- Author Michael T. Young announces a new poetry chapbook, “Living in the Counterpoint,” now available to pre-order from publisher Finishing Line Press. The book is scheduled to be released as a traditional saddle-stitched pamphlet early next year -- January 13, 2012 -- and is Young’s third poetry collection. Young’s full-length book, “Transcriptions of Daylight,” was published by Rattapallax Press in 2000, and an earlier chapbook, “Because the Wind Has Questions,” by Somers Rocks Press in 1997. A new full-length collection, “The Beautiful Moment of Being Lost,” was recently accepted for publication in 2013 by Black Coffee Press.

Finishing Line Press, based in the heart of the blue grass region of central Kentucky, is an award-winning small press publisher, with the goal of “providing a place for today’s poets” since 1998. Michael Anthony Bradshaw, “American Book Review,” describes FLP chapbooks as "... the kinds of books that sell at poetry readings and connect readers to writers who do the good work of small press publishing."

Young, who holds down a full-time corporate job and shares the responsibilities of raising two small children with his wife, writes poems that are infused with the passages, chance encounters, detours and observations of his daily life, and the memories and associations they trigger. And in the face of death, change and human interaction, he is “thrilled by the risk and uncertainty.” Asked to describe his new collection, Young says “If you’ve ever been astonished that in all the infinite amount of time, and all the endless empty and silent space in the universe, you are now alive and aware of being so, that is what my poems try to approach. All of them surfaced in the course of daily life, while sitting on the subway, sitting in a café, rising in a moment of insomnia, driving home toward the sunrise. In these moments, I find myself confronted by the question of identity in the face of loss and change - the way the daily details render the face of who we are. The most dominant influences while writing these poems were Stephen Dunn and Gerald Stern. I've always admired their ability to take quite personal moments and find some concern central to simply being alive.”

Benjamin Evans, Executive Editor, “Fogged Clarity” says “Michael T. Young has crafted a metaphysics of memory in all its ache and luster. These poems pin down ghosts; finger the stirrings of nostalgia and its seeming perpetuity. Through a yearning to define those feelings most elusive, Young succeeds in unveiling them. ‘Living in the Counterpoint’ coaxes introspection and haunts like a summer dusk, it is a true achievement.”

“With the deftness of a magician, Michael T. Young moves us seamlessly between point and counterpoint, so seamlessly that we are almost unaware of the shifts from the living to the dead, from light to dark, near to far, and early to late. In tightly crafted gem-like poems, he contemplates fossils, diamonds, headstones, rivers, bridges, and even a slug, ultimately achieving and imparting ‘a deep knowledge of the earth.’” writes Diane Lockward, Poet Laureate of West Caldwell, NJ and author of “Temptation by Water.”

The twenty poems of “Living in the Counterpoint” were written over an eight-year period and have been published in “The Chaffin Journal,” “Heliotrope,” “Rattle,” “NYCBigCityLit” and “Spillway” among other places. One poem, “The Unearthing,” was the winner of the 2005 Chaffin Poetry Award. His favorite poem of the collection, “Where Dragonflies Sleep,” is featured in the online preview of the forthcoming print anthology “The Bug Book” (Poets Wear Prada, 2012).

Michael T. Young has received both a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and a William Stafford Award, and he has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work has appeared in numerous journals including “The Adirondack Review,” “Barrow Street,” “Iodine Poetry Journal,” “The Potomac Review,” “The Louisville Review,” and “The Same.” His work is also included in the anthologies “Chance of a Ghost” (Helicon Nine Editions, 2005) and “Phoenix Rising” (T&W, 2004). He currently lives with his wife and children in Jersey City, New Jersey.

“Living in the Counterpoint” by Michael T. Young, Finishing Line Press, ISBN 1-59924-870-0, Paper, $12. Release Date: January 13, 2012. Pre-order directly from the publisher’s website, http://www.finishinglinepress.com. Shipping & handling within the USA is only $1.49 per book for a limited time only. Please include $3.99 S&H for all international orders

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